Towser

’Tis pain to tell thee the Life I lead with him. He’s colder to me, than Adamant to Fire; but let him looſe among my Kitchen-Furniture, my Maids, never was ſeen ſo termagant a Towſer: He loves a naſty, foul-fed, fulſome Drab, and ſcorns the tender Joys my Arms invite him to.

“Heigh!” yelled Noah; “go it, Towser!” / “Is dat your dogue?” shouted the bearward. / “No, not mine,” answered Noah. “He looks a towser, that’s why I called him so. Go it, Towser!”

Now I tell ’ee, dearly beloved, ’tedn’ no use to try and cure a drunkard by moderation: you might so well tie up a towser (apron) in the gap to keep the old sow out of the tatties.

A wonnerful bowerly maid her was, an’ a towser for work, an’ ’mazin’ even-tempered tu.

Shin Din Din—great, lion-hearted towser that he is—stands chattering his teeth and regarding her; his mind divided between sympathy for her and the smoldering hatred for his old and reliable enemy, the grey wolf.

The wind and rain up on the high ground of the Carn Croft Mine was sharp and relentless and penetrated Sarah Hichens’ hand-me-down, calf-length dress, petticoat, shawl and hessian towser apron and bit into her flesh, adding more misery to her hard life.